Police block off the roads leading into Tiananmen Square in Beijing as smoke rises into the air after the crash, Oct. 28, 2013.

AFP

Chinese authorities said Wednesday that they have arrested five Uyghur suspects in connection with a deadly motor vehicle crash at Tiananmen Square, describing it as a “violent terrorist attack” — Beijing’s first in recent history.

But some experts challenged the government claim, saying many questions remain unanswered about the crash that occurred on Monday near a huge portrait of Mao Zedong hanging from the walls of the Forbidden City, leaving five dead and 40 others injured, according to police.

The dead comprised the driver of the sports utility vehicle, his wife and mother — who were with him inside the car — and two tourists.

The SUV was driven by Usmen Hasan, police said, suggesting that he, his wife and mother as well as five detained suspects were ethnic Uyghur Muslims from the far western region of Xinjiang.

The exile World Uyghur Congress told RFA that Chinese authorities had rounded up nearly 100 Uyghurs for questioning in connection with the incident as “an excuse” for a crackdown on the minority group, which complains of discrimination and religious controls under Beijing’s rule in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Beijing police claimed on their official microblog that devices filled with gasoline, knives and a flag with “religious extremist content” written on it were inside the vehicle, which they said had plowed into pedestrians in the square and exploded in a “carefully planned, organized and premeditated” suicide attack.

The trio allegedly “ignited the gasoline inside the car,” the police said, adding that it had a license plate from Xinjiang, home to the Uyghurs who blame the influx of China’s majority Han Chinese into the region for their continued poverty and joblessness.

The five arrested on Monday had confessed to plotting the “attack,” police said. Banners calling for a Holy war, long knives and other items were found in at least one suspect’s residence, according to the authorities.

At least one of those held was from Xinjiang’s Turpan prefecture’s Lukchun (Lukqun, in Chinese) township, where deadly clashes in June left at least 46 dead, based on accounts by local officials and residents.

Doubts

Wong Dong, a Macau-based Chinese military analyst, cast doubt over Beijing’s claim of a terrorist attack.

If there was such an attack, he said, it should involve explosives and not gasoline.

Based on photos of the crash available on the Internet, Wong expressed surprise that in a “sensitive area” such as Tiananmen Square, where there is believed to be heavy police presence, no one appeared to have rushed to put out the fire quickly.

“There has to be more evidence to back up claims that it is a planned terrorist attack,” he told RFA.

“Three people [who were in the vehicle] did this kind of thing is quite abnormal,” he said. “It is weird.”

Chinese authorities usually blame outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang on Uyghur “terrorists.”

But rights groups and experts say Beijing exaggerates the terrorism threat to take the heat off domestic policies that cause unrest or to justify the authorities’ use of force against Uyghurs.

In recent months, dozens of Uyghurs accused of terrorism have been shot dead in lightning raids in Xinjiang.

93 Uyghurs held

A spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress said based on information received from various sources, authorities in Beijing had arrested 93 Uyghurs without any legal basis since Monday’s incident.

“This incident may become another excuse for the authorities to crack down on the Uyghurs again,” Dilxat Raxit, who is based in Sweden, told RFA via email.

A source close to Beijing police told RFA that they were confident that the five suspected Uyghurs picked up on Monday could help in the investigations.

“The police have to reach a conclusion after investigations to let the public know what has happened,” the source said. “If you take the wrong people in, how can you [reach the right conclusion],” the source asked.

Tens of thousands of Uyghurs living in Beijing could face greater security controls following the crash.

A local farmer’s market inspector said that identification documents of Uyghurs are already being screened. Their personal details are reconfirmed with official records through the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau police.

“We check all ID’s and then contact Xinjiang police to see if they have any criminal record,” he said.

Internet controls

The authorities have also clamped down on discussions of the incident on Chinese microblogs. Comments posted by netizens appear to have been deleted by cybercops.

“We do not see any reviews, comments,” a Han Chinese man identifying himself as Wang said from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. “We cannot make comments on this. All comments sites have been closed. The authorities do not allow comments.”

Security has been beefed up in Xinjiang, residents said.

In Kashgar city, security patrols have been intensified since Tuesday, a Han Chinese resident said.

“Since the morning of yesterday, those road blocks withdrawn earlier have been set up again in the downtown area,” the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“[All the police] patrol with guns. There are seven or eight policemen at one road block. All vehicles and pedestrians come into and going out of the city are being checked.”

Reported by RFA’s Cantonese Service and Qiao Long for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated by Ping Chen and Shiny Li. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

Related Stories

The lack of authoritative information on the deadly car blaze in Tiananmen Square has given rise to a lot of speculation on Chinese social media.

A sport-utility vehicle ploughed through a crowd of tourists and caught fire in front of the Forbidden City, not far away from China’s top leadership compound Zhongnanhai, killing three occupants and two tourists and injuring 38 visitors and security officers, according to official reports.

State media have carried low-key coverage of the incident. State broadcaster CCTV did not even mention it on its flagship evening bulletin at 19:00 local time (11:00 GMT), though its late night bulletin at 22:00 did include a brief announcer-read report without pictures.

On social media platforms such as the Twitter-like weibo microblogs, pictures of the scene were quickly deleted and comments were heavily censored.

But the censorship only resulted in more questions being asked and more interest among the public.

Censorship stokes speculationOn Sina Weibo, China’s biggest microblogging website, users complained about the lack of official information on the unprecedented incident and asked for more details.

User Desert Fish wrote: “Who were the persons involved? Did they shout any slogans or throw any flyers? All these questions need answers.”

Another netizen, Potato Herring, asked: “Were there explosives in the vehicle? How did the occupants die? What reasons might have been behind the deadly incident?”

“This must be a suicide attack by extremists. But what is their objective???” asked user Doctor Wang.

Quite a few netizens have speculated on who might have been behind the incident, which took place in the run-up to an important party meeting scheduled for next month.

Some pointed the finger at separatists from Tibet or Xinjiang, while others said it might have had something to do with supporters of Bo Xilai, whose appeal against his life sentence had just been rejected.

However, the fact that there were three people in the vehicle did not seem to fit the pattern of terror attacks, some netizens said.

“If it were a terrorist attack, there should have been only one person in the vehicle. It shouldn’t have been three or more,” user Violin Note C wrote on weibo.

The scene of the car crash was rapidly shielded by police

Instead of a terror attack, it was more likely to be a suicide protest by desperate petitioners, argued user Leng Zixing.

“Petitioners in despair would choose to die together as a family, because those left behind would suffer even more,” he commented.

“It was a typical act of retaliation against society,” said netizen Lexi Yang.

“They could not find solutions to their problems and were forced to take extreme actions. Unless senior officials give common people the right to speak out, such things will keep happening,” said Kuailewuji2013.

The incident sparked concern that Chinese society is getting increasingly violent and unsafe.

“This happened in the most heavily guarded place in China. So is there any place left that is still safe?” asked user Mandy Pang.

Five Killed As Car Ploughs Into Crowd In Peking’s Tiananmen Square

Related Video

Five killed as car plows into crowd in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square (01:22)

BEIJING | Mon Oct 28, 2013 11:13am EDT

(Reuters) – Five people were killed and dozens injured on Monday, the government said, when a car ploughed into pedestrians and caught fire in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the site of 1989 pro-democracy protests bloodily suppressed by the military.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, asked whether the government believed the incident was a attack, said she did not know the specifics of the case and declined further comment.

Police said on their official microblog that the car veered off the road at the north of the square, a major tourist attraction, crossed the barriers and caught fire.

The three Uyghur in the car died, they said.

The Beijing city government said on one of its official news websites that a female tourist from the Philippines and a male tourist from southern Guangdong province had also died.

Of the 38 injured, three were tourists from the Philippines and one from Japan, it added.

The central and Beijing governments held a meeting after the incident to speedily investigate what happened and “ensure the security and stability of the capital”, it said.

The car crashed almost directly in front of the main entrance of the Forbidden City, where there hangs a huge portrait of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

Tiananmen Square is always under heavy security due to its proximity to the Zhongnanhai compound of the central leadership and due to the Great Hall of the People which overlooks the square. It is also the site of Mao’s mausoleum.

But the square is still a magnet for protesters, especially around the June 4 anniversary of the crushing of the student-led demonstrations in 1989, though they are normally swiftly bundled away by police.

A Reuters witness said he saw fire engines, an ambulance and numerous police cars heading in the direction of the fire, which sent a plume of black smoke into the sky.

The main road through the square was briefly closed. Police also evacuated the main part of the square.

A foreign tourist who was on the square and asked not to be identified said she heard an explosion followed by a fire.